DA Archive

9/26/2011

State ethics officials will review the circumstances surrounding a trip Iowa?s top education official took to Brazil that was indirectly paid for by a foundation with ties to an education firm that does business with the state.

Jason Glass, director of the Iowa Department of Education, was one of 12 state school chiefs to participate in the mid-September trip, sponsored by the Council of Chief School State Officers and funded through a grant from the Pearson Foundation, the nonprofit side of one of the world?s largest developers of educational assessments.

Like many Republicans, Atlanta's Stella Lohmann -- a blogger, teacher and former journalist -- is fed up with mandates, funding requests, lawsuit avoidance and a one-size-fits-all approach to education and says the federal government has undertaken a massive overreach.

Now, her question on what Republicans are going to do about it ? asked during the Fox News/Google debate on Thursday night -- has re-ignited a once-novel debate over eliminating the U.S. Education Department. And judging by the GOP candidates' reaction, the option may come back in vogue, if not into reality.

Having failed to attract investors to a proposed wind farm project in downstate Stark County, Carpentersville-based Community Unit District 300, Prospect Heights Elementary District 23 and Keeneyville Elementary District 20 are looking at another option that will enable them to harness the power of wind energy.

Initially, the three districts? School Wind Consortium Joint Action Renewable Energy Agency sought to purchase wind turbines in Stark County, located northwest of Peoria.

Boys and girls may be opposites, but new research shows that in the classroom, separating the two sexes may not be the best way for either gender to learn and grow.

A new report, published in the journal Science, states that students who attend single-sex schools are no better educated than those who attend co-ed schools. Plus, children are more likely to accept gender stereotypes when they go to an all-boys or all-girls school.

When passed by Congress in 2001, the No Child Left Behind Act aimed to improve student performance and teacher accountability.
But more than a decade after it was approved, critics say change is needed because successful schools are increasingly being labeled as failures, and the emphasis on testing narrows school curriculum.

Educators and lawmakers say a revamp of the federal education policy is needed immediately.

Host Brian Williams released the results of a survey: Teachers believe only 63% of students leave high school prepared for college. The reasons for the given included a lack of academic preparation, a lack of student motivation and a lack of encouragement. The statement generated more than 1900 comments on Facebook, Twitter and EducationNation.com within the first few minutes of the meeting.

Greater Southern Tier BOCES and many of its member school districts are pitching in to help school districts affected by the catastrophic flood that hit nearly three weeks ago.

"The collaboration among the districts in the GST BOCES region was amazing," said Brian Bentley, superintendent of buildings and grounds at GST BOCES. "The willingness to help others in hard times is commendable."

Much of the aid has been given to the Owego-Apalachin School District, which is a member of Broome-Tioga BOCES.

9/23/2011

Virginia's Board of Education is expected today to hand off legislation to local school districts allowing them to add gun safety to elementary school curriculum.

The state's General Assembly approved a measure last April that required the Board of Education to design course materials in line with the National Rifle Association's Eddie Eagle GunSafe Program guidelines to teach elementary students about gun safety.

Teach for All, an international network of educational nonprofit groups modeled on Teach for America, has grown rapidly since its founding four years ago and now has some 1,500 teachers heading classrooms in more than a dozen countries, with recruiting under way in many more, the group?s founder, Wendy Kopp, said on Wednesday.

The floors are just bare concrete, but students are back in class at Moretown Elementary School after flooding from the remnants of Hurricane Irene forced it to hold classes outside under tents ? including one cold, stormy day when students huddled under blankets and sipped cocoa during math.

Like other Vermont schools, Moretown had to adapt to get students back to school as quickly as possible ? a top priority in the upheaval from the Aug. 28 storm, which swept over Vermont just as the academic year was beginning.

Omnilert?, LLC announced the upcoming release of e2Campus uAlert version 4.0, the leading interactive safety communication solution for education. A major new enhancement includes an easier attendance notification tool that enables K12 schools and school districts to notify parents when students are absent.